When does closed really mean closed?

Tuesday

Jan 1, 2013 at 5:42 PMJan 1, 2013 at 5:44 PM

Some won't take 'closed' for an answer

Dave Clarke

What’s closed and what’s not? That’s a question that comes up often around the holidays — Christmas and New Year’s included.We used to run a listing in the paper, but it’s usually the same places — post office, schools, banks, etc. — so we no longer do unless it’s something out of the ordinary.But the question of what’s open and closed has produced some interesting experiences over the years.When I was editor of the Galva News in the early 1980s, I got involved in a heated conversation over the phone with a local retailer about listing the businesses which were open.Bill Ramsdale was owner of the Galva Ben Franklin store, which was quite a popular destination for people looking for craft supplies. They were open seven days a week, which brought business to Galva on Sundays. I’m sure they were closed on Christmas Day, but they were open every other holiday for shoppers’ convenience, something not as common in the 80s as it is today.Bill was a top-notch manager, involved with the Chamber of Commerce, and an aggressive promoter.His point was that there are far fewer businesses OPEN on a holiday, so why not run a list of them in the newspaper? I countered that schools and post offices were public institutions, banks were regulated by the federal government which made notice of their closing public information. Stores, restaurants, shops, gas stations and other businesses were privately owned and whether they were open or closed for a holiday was considered advertising and something they would have to buy.I also pointed out it would be hard to come up with a complete listing of businesses which would be open and would hear about it if we left someone out.We went back and forth and settled nothing. We still ran the same list of banks, library, schools and post office which, of course, everyone knew were going to be closed anyway. Ben Franklin bought their usual ad announcing they would be open on the upcoming holiday. Y’gotta pay the bills somehow.Speaking of Galva, while I was working at WKEI in the mid-70s Kewanee was hit one winter day by a severe blizzard, similar to the one we had Dec. 20. The State Police had officially closed Route 78 south of Kewanee and had placed a barricade and squad car at the edge of town to keep people from venturing out in the blowing and drifting conditions.A woman called and asked, “How is the road to Galva?” I matter-of-factly explained the situation. She replied, “Yes, but how is the road to Galva?” After several apparently disconnected exchanges, I finally realized that what she wanted was a mile-by-mile report on where the drifts were located and whether or not she could get through them.I finally said “closed” meant “closed” and she could take it up with the State Police. It turned out she wanted to get to Galva to buy paint at Hathaway’s, which was probably closed by then anyway, due to the storm.Whether or not people have the right to risk their very lives to shop, was the question which arose from another bad-weather phone call to the WKEI newsroom in the 70s.Once again, the roads were drifting shut, high winds had created whiteout conditions and zero visibility and we were passing along over the air, at the request of State Police, an advisory that people stay home and not drive on the roads due to the hazardous conditions.We received a phone call from an angry downtown merchant wanting us to stop airing the announcement because it was discouraging people from shopping in Kewanee.To put this in perspective, in the 1970s, downtown Kewanee was still a thriving center of commerce, but the stores were getting serious competition from new malls in Moline and Peoria. Actually, they were getting clobbered, and to hear us telling people to stay home, for any reason, apparently drove the manager of one of the major chains which had a store downtown to pick up the phone and demand we stop telling people what to do.His contention was that they should make up their own minds on whether or not to drive on the roads without any help from either us or the State Police.Around the newsroom for years that episode generated the tongue-in-cheek, off-air comment, “Motorists are advised to stay off area roads due to hazardous driving conditions, and above all, do not shop in downtown Kewanee!”We were young and irreverent back then, and really didn’t appreciate the reality of the situation.As many discovered during the most recent blizzard, you have the right to drive whenever and wherever you want, no matter how bad the driving conditions.Just don’t count on anyone coming to pull you out.